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On August 4, amid rising political tensions surrounding the formation of a new government, unidentified men attacked the office of the country's leading daily, Suara Timor Lorosa'e (STL), according to the Bangkok-based Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA).

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Your Excellency:
The Committee to Protect Journalists urges you to refrain from signing a bill before you that threatens freedom of the press and free expression by imposing harsh penalties for defamation. As you know, Prime Minister Mari bim Altakiri approved on December 6, 2005, a bill revising the penal code, which had been passed by the National Parliament. The penal code revisions now before you allow for up to three years imprisonment and unlimited fines for publishing statements deemed defamatory of public officials.

The vicious murder of Wall Street Journal
reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan focused international attention on
the dangers faced by journalists covering the U.S. "war on terror," yet
most attacks on journalists in Asia happened far from the eyes of the
international press. In countries such as Bangladesh and the
Philippines, reporters covering crime and political corruption were as
vulnerable to attack as those reporting on violent insurgency. Seven
journalists were killed in 2002 for their work in Asia.